Efamol FAQs

Our website should have answered all the questions you might have about Efamol, but here's a list of our most frequently asked questions just in case.

Click any of the questions to view the answer.

How long has Efamol been developing the Efamol range of products?

Efamol Ltd. has been the leader in scientifically proven essential fatty acid supplements for over 25 years.

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How can I buy Efamol products from outside the UK?

Easily! Visit the "How to buy" section of our website for a list of the products available in your country and your nearest distributor.

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Where are products available?

For stockists of Efamol in the United Kingdom please visit the How to Buy section. For stockists outside the United Kingdom please visit the Distributors section of this site.

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What shall I do if I'm not sure which product is best for me?

Your chemist or health store will be able to recommend products that are suitable for you, and the product information on this website should help, but if you have any further questions you can call the Efamol Help Line on 0870-6060128 (local call rate) from within the UK or from elsewhere in the world +44 (0) 1372-379828 from 0900 to 1700 hrs GMT Monday to Thursday and from 0900 to 1530 hrs GMT on Friday.

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Which fish are used in Efamol products?

For Efalex, Efalex Pregnancy +, Efalex Active 50+ and Efalex Chewies a high-DHA fish oil is prepared commercially from fish of the tuna species (mainly Skip Jack~70%, and Yellow fin ~30%) obtained from Thailand and Australia.

For Efamarine the fish oil used is derived from species of ocean fish naturally higher in EPA. Mainly from Anchovy (Engraulidae) and Sardine (Clupeidae), but it may also be from other families such as Mackerel (Scombridae), and Whiting (Osmeridae) from the South Pacific.

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How long is it between the fish being caught and processing?

The fish is placed on ice as soon as it’s caught and is processed as soon as possible to maintain freshness. Note that some of the meat is used in sushi so the product must obviously be maintained in excellent condition.

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What parts of the fish are used to make the oil?

For all Efamol fish oils, the raw material is high quality food grade fish body oil. The whole fish is used. Body oil is naturally lower in environmental toxins than liver oils.

Liver oils contain high levels of Vitamin A and Vitamin D. It is possible to exceed the recommended daily allowance for Vitamin A in particular when trying to achieve the required dosage of omega-3 fatty acids from liver oils - particularly when taken in combination with other vitamin supplements.

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Is the fish oil included in Efalex and Efamarine tested for mercury levels?

Yes, every batch must contain less than 0.01 parts per million (ppm) of mercury. The fish oil is also tested for approximately 50 other potential environmental contaminants (heavy metals, PCBs, pesticides, etc).

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What makes the Efalex fish oil molecular distillation process unique, resulting in pure oil?

The oil refining technology used is carried out in state of the art manufacturing facilities in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards. This particular process concentrates and purifies the oil over a minimum of three molecular distillation steps using ultra high vacuum and short residence times in order to maintain the integrity of the oil. Every batch is quality tested against defined specifications using pharmacopoeial standards and methods.

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Why are thyme oil and vitamin E added to Efalex Capsules and Efalex Liquid?

Thyme oil and vitamin E are included due to their antioxidant properties: these ingredients help protect the fatty acids in Efalex from damaging oxidation.

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How long will it take before I see results with Efamol fatty acid supplements?

It may take up to 12 weeks before you will notice an improvement in your health. Fatty acid supplementation provides nutrients that have been depleted from the body and correcting this takes time to achieve maximum benefit. Therefore, allow at least three months before evaluating whether the treatment is effective.

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Can I take any Efamol fatty acid supplements with other medications or supplements?

Anyone under medical supervision or taking medication should consult their health care provider before taking any supplement including those in the Efamol range. There are no known contra indications with other supplements so there should not be a problem taking Efamol products at the same time as other vitamin and mineral supplements.

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Why does Efamol use the Rigel® Evening Primrose Oil?

Seeds from wild varieties of Evening Primrose will vary from crop to crop in the quantity and quality of their active ingredient, Gamma-Linolenic Acid (GLA), an essential fatty acid. Hence, the wild plant can not be relied upon for a consistent quantity or quality of oil. There are over 2000 species of Evening Primrose. Efamol plant scientists have made great progress in breeding improved crop plants from wild varieties through standard agricultural selection techniques (not genetic modification). These give the best yield in seed and top quality oil with a consistent percentage of GLA. As a result of this research, the equivalent of plant “patents” has been granted to Efamol for six varieties of their Evening Primrose plants. The most recent of these being a variety called “Rigel” (Oenothera spp.). Efamol Pure Evening Primrose Oil manufactured from Rigel® seeds contains up to 33% more GLA than found in wild plants. Even so, more than 10,000 Rigel® seeds are required to produce a single Efamol Pure Evening Primrose Oil 1g capsule. Efamol’s Rigel® Evening Primrose seeds are grown exclusively under contract by farmers in New Zealand and Europe. Efamol Pure Evening Primrose Oil is not sourced from seed grown in China, nor do Efamol supply oil to other manufacturers. That means Efamol’s proprietary seed varieties, developed by Efamol, are grown exclusively for Efamol and no other evening primrose oils in the world are manufactured using Rigel® Evening Primrose seeds.

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What is Efamol’s position on global over fishing?

In essence, fish oil use in supplements has negligible impact on fish stocks or over fishing and is instead a means of optimizing return from an undervalued resource. Over 1.2 million tonnes of fish oil is produced per year but the use of fish oil in human nutrition is not a major usage. For example, in 2000, production was allocated as illustrated below:

  • 31% for human nutrition in food.
  • 2% for supplements/pharmaceuticals.
  • 67% for aquaculture, technical use, or burnt as fuel in processing plants.

By 2010, industrial usage is predicted to increase to 98% with only 1% being used for human edible oil and 1% for supplements and pharmaceuticals.

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What is being done to minimize the use of fish oil in Efamol products?

The formulation of Efamol products has been proven in clinical trials. We use fish oil in our products because there is evidence that it delivers benefits. This evidence is used to support the products in marketing, but more importantly to substantiate health claims from a regulatory perspective.

  • In Australia, the health claims associated with listed products cannot be made without significant clinical documentation to prove efficacy.
  • Vegetable sources of short chain Omega-3 have insufficient evidence to prove their effectiveness.
  • There is also limited data on algal derived material, to support efficacy claims in children/adults.

Once adequate data is available we will consider inclusion in our formulations.

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How many clinical trials have tested Efamol products and how does this help guarantee the quality/efficacy of those product?

For the last three decades, Efamol has been committed to testing the efficacy of its products in human clinical trials to confirm they work for their intended use. Efamol has been responsible for most of the published scientific studies confirming the health benefits of EPO and GLA. A GLA bibliography published in 1996 included approximately 750 publications pertaining to GLA derived from Efamol® EPO with nearly half of those being clinical trials. Many other companies base their product claims and recommendations for their EPO and other GLA containing oils on work carried out by Efamol or independent researchers using Efamol® EPO as the source of GLA. These claims are unfounded. Efamol® EPO is extracted from unique seed varieties using a special technique that creates distinctive oil. Therefore, oils otherwise manufactured may not match the efficacy of Efamol® EPO.

In addition to the work carried out on Efamol® EPO, there have been nine clinical studies reporting the benefits of Efalex supplementation.

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Why does Efamol use DHA-rich oil rather than an EPA-rich fish oil for cognitive products? What’s the best balance of these omega-3 fatty acids?

  • The most abundant omega-3 fatty acid in the brain is DHA (docosahexaenoic acid).
  • The most abundant omega-6 fatty acids in the brain are AA and adrenic acid, which is made from AA.
  • There is hardly any EPA in the brain and in nerve cells.
  • Studies on infants show the supply of DHA and AA in early life is critical for good brain and visual development. No studies on EPA in infancy have shown similar results yet.
  • Plasma fatty acids of ADHD boys with high scores for signs of fatty acid deficiency were compared with those with low fatty acid deficiency signs. There was no significant difference between EPA values in the two groups, but the high fatty acid deficiency group did have lower DHA levels1.
  • EPA is converted in the body to DHA. It is not known yet whether this conversion process is impaired in dyslexia, ADHD or dyspraxia, but even in healthy people only about 23% of dietary EPA is converted to DHA within the body2. Until the specific biochemical differences between people with and without specific learning disorders are known, supplements that provide the fatty acids that are deficient in their tissues should be supplied (i.e. DHA and AA).
  • Studies of nearly 200 children and adults with dyslexia, nearly 100 children with features of ADHD, 15 children with dyspraxia, 20 boys with behaviour problems and 30 children with autism have shown that Efalex® improves reading performance, reduces symptoms of ADHD and improves movement skills. So far, there are no large trials - either open or double blind placebo controlled - that indicate high-EPA fish oil is better for these conditions. In fact, one of the Efalex studies3 and one high EPA fish oil study4 was led by the same researcher, Dr Alex Richardson of Oxford University. In these studies, she used the same sorts of measures to assess the children’s response to treatment, for example: DSM Inattention, Perfectionism, Hyperactivity, etc. Therefore it is possible to directly compare how effective one product is relative to the other using the magnitude of improvement for each of these measures following treatment with each of the products. Using this approach similar improvement in ADHD-type symptoms are apparent using both treatments. However, 10 out of 13 measures improved greater with Efalex than with the high- EPA product, while only three improved greater with high-EPA product than with Efalex. However, for those three measures, in the Efalex trial the placebo response deteriorated substantially more than in the high-EPA oil trial. Therefore, the Efalex improvements for these three measures were also greater than for the high-EPA oil. This means that Efalex worked better than the high-EPA oil for every symptom assessed.

In conclusion, the high-DHA fish oil based supplement Efalex® has been shown to be effective for dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia and related learning and behaviour conditions in nine clinical studies. There is very little evidence of EPA deficiency in these conditions, whereas there is evidence for DHA deficiency.

  1. Stevens L et al. Omega-3 fatty acids in boys with behaviour, learning and health problems. Physiol Behav 1996;59(4-5):915-920.
  2. R. J. Pawlosky, J. R. Hibbeln, J. A. Novotny, N. Salem. Physiological compartmental analysis of α-linolenic acid metabolism in adult humans. J Lipid Res 42 (2001) 1257-65.
  3. Richardson AJ, Puri BK. A randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the effects of supplementation with highly unsaturated fatty acids on ADHD-related symptoms in children with specific learning difficulties. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 2002; 26:233-9.
  4. Richardson, A.J. Montgomery, P., The Oxford-Durham study: a randomised controlled trial of fatty acid supplementation in children with developmental coordination disorder. Pediatrics, 2005. 115(5): p. 1360-1366.

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Why are the Efamol products more expensive than competitor brands?

  • All the Efamol products are based on sound scientific rationale.
  • Each Efamol product is specifically formulated to target a specific health concern. The quantity and type of ingredients that are included in each formulation are there for a reason - because they work. Most competitor brands contain random mixtures of oils with no sound scientific rationale for the product composition.
  • The Efamol company consists of fatty acid experts and specialists, and their product focus is strictly on improving health through fatty acid supplementation.
  • All Efamol products are subjected to clinical testing in humans (an expensive procedure). In fact, the Efamol fatty acid range has more clinical research support than any other.
  • There is nearly 30 years of heritage and credibility behind the brand.

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Why should you buy Efamol products when they cost more than competitor brands?

  • Efamol® EPO is a unique oil extracted from proprietary seed varieties using a specially designed process.
  • Efamol® EPO has a proven safety and efficacy profile.
  • Oils otherwise manufactured may differ in:
    • Composition
    • Quality
    • Safety
    • Efficacy
  • Most of the Efamol® products include Efamol® EPO.
  • All Efamol® products are specially formulated to target specific health concerns and are clinically tested to confirm that they work.
  • Buying Efamol® products guarantees success!

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Will flax oil do the same thing as fish oil?

The answer to that question really depends on your health and why you are using the product. If you are perfectly healthy and you just want to make sure you’re getting enough essential fatty acids (EFAs) in your diet, then flax oil is a good choice. It makes a good salad oil and can form a foundation to obtain EFAs in a healthy diet. It is a rich source of the two EFAs, Linoleic Acid (LA) and Alpha-Linolenic Acid (ALA). A healthy body is able to use the EFAs like those found in flax seed oil to make long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs), although this process is very inefficient. These LC-PUFAs include gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) and arachidonic acid (AA) derived from LA and eicospentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) derived from ALA. It is these LC-PUFAs that are responsible for reducing the symptoms of fatty acid deficiency. The EFAs do not provide this affect themselves, but in an unhealthy body (for example in people with atopic eczema, PMS, arthritis or learning disorders) this conversion process is even further compromised. Therefore, you need to take an awful lot of flax oil to provide only a modest, if any improvement. Just as an example, in a study where breast feeding mothers were given 25g of Flax oil per day, there was no change in milk DHA content1, whereas a few grams of fish oil will produce significant increases in milk DHA2.

  1. Francois CA et al. Supplementing lactating women with flaxseed oil does not increase DHA in their milk. Am J Clin Nutr 2003 Jan;77(1):226
  2. Bowen R and Clandinin M. LIPIDS 2000;35:389-94.

The specific benefits obtained from fish oils supplementation providing EPA and DHA e.g. in the fields of cardiovascular disease, learning and behaviour disorders, inflammation, and maternal/infant nutrition have simply not been demonstrated in trials using flaxseed oil. Results obtained using fish oils or long chain Omega-3 fatty acids should not be extrapolated to flaxseed oil or alpha-linolenic acid.

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Are the fatty acids in Efamol products 'standardized'? How does Efamol ensure a constant concentration of Omega-3's in their fish oils?

Every batch of raw material oil and finished product capsules is tested by gas chromatography to ensure that the relevant fatty acids are present within a certain range. That range is specified in the Product Specification. Only if the oil composition agrees with the specification is it released for sale by The Efamol Quality Assurance Manager.

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The importance of fatty acids

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